AMK Horsemanship

19/04/2025

WHAT CAN’T SURVIVE TRANSPARENCY

There’s an old saying in the horse world, I believe by Pat Parelli, that goes something like, “When you take off the halter you’ll be left with the truth.”

I think what he was getting at is this concept that a relationship based on force can’t survive transparency.

Although it seems this was a step in the right direction, nowadays, I think many of us realize that even “liberty” can be taught in forceful and sometimes downright violent ways, and just because the horse appears free with no physical attachment does not mean that behavior wasn’t trained through forceful methods, and it doesn’t mean any kind of “choice” is truly present.

Even if liberty is taught, prior to the horse truly consenting to touch, by well intentioned folks in ways that appear perhaps benign to most (depending on the individual and views of R+ vs R-), ways that natural horsemanship schools tend to teach it – creating draw and making the right thing easy the wrong thing hard, etc – if the horse isn’t actually okay with touch, the final picture we get still won’t survive transparency when put to the test.

For example, while working with a mustang recently, a mustang who had been ridden for a few years, but had a bolting problem that wouldn’t go away, I set off to find the root of the problem and see just how far back we needed to go. After some digging, it became apparent she actually wasn’t okay with touch. I say digging because it’s not always so straightforward, especially if they have liberty training! I turned her out in the roundpen and she did as she was taught: to follow me. She stayed super hooked on. But she had learned, through pressure & release, that if she follows me, I go away. But what happens when we offer another option?

I left the roundpen and came back in once she had taken up another interest, nibbling some hay at the other end of it. (In these cases, I might also just set a bit of a boundary and ask the horse to go off and not be right by me, which I probably did with this horse at some point, too). When I proceeded to approach her again, she je**ed her head up towards me when I was 30 feet away. Before she could latch onto me again, I released the pressure of my presence, and turned and walked away. I released at the slightest stress signal (lifting the head & looking at me). I repeated this, and got the same result, over and over again.

So, if she kept doing this like clockwork, what does that tell me? It tells me that if the behavior repeated with consistency (her giving two eyes when I approached her), then I was reinforcing that behavior (by turning and walking away, removing the aversive stimulus aka my presence). That’s the basic definition of reinforcement: If the thing you’re doing is reinforcing (aka walking away), you’ll see more of the behavior (aka giving me two eyes).

Two disclaimers before we proceed:

1- If you’re training with almost exclusively R+ to the extent that’s possible, this post isn’t really applicable to you. Consent can look different in some ways in the R+ paradigm and it feels like even more of a direct and ongoing conversation, so I’m not trying to apply this to you if that’s the case. Your horse might “fail” this test because the reinforcer isn’t present and that’s a whole different story.

2- The “test” as I’ve described here is not always this simple. It’s easy to get a false read on horses who have built up a lot of coping mechanisms, horses stuck in functional freeze or horses who tend to be a bit bold and go into a bit of “fight” even through mildly “pushy” behaviors. That’s for another post. These horses may require a more tactful approach to start to get a “true” read.

Okay, let’s get back to it..

This transparency test – approaching and retreating when the horse gives you two eyes – is the first step I do when evaluating a horse to try to get a full picture and read on them to find where our true starting point is, regardless of whether they’ve been ridden for years.

For horses who tend to “fail” this test, ie the horse who isn’t actually okay with being touched… this will typically show up in a variety of ways, depending on the horse.

For the sake of explaining here, I’ll put these horses into two groups based on the ways they present themselves when they are not actually okay with touch, horses who don’t survive this transparency test.

In Group 1, we have horses who range from mild but annoying and ongoing mouthiness and nippiness behavior, to full on dangerous displays of behaviors such as bolting, bucking, etc. Pretty straightforward.

In Group 2, we have horses who may on the surface appear to cope pretty well with it, but what they are usually doing is coping by existing in an ongoing state of functional freeze. These are horses that tend to “fit the program.” Could be a mustang formerly untouched for most of their life, could be a selectively bred foal who's been rubbed all over in the days just after birth with no choice but to accept it… This kind of horse who copes via functional freeze since they aren’t actually okay with being touched won’t typically show outward and overt signs of stress, such as the horses described in Group 1. Instead, you might see them and describe them as “compliant.” But perhaps, a bit of a dull eye… an eye that’s lost its spark… (Side note: I think there's a reason it’s been said that eyes are the window to the soul. In freeze, I see it as a horse’s soul leaves their body and hence the eye appears vacant. Like no one’s really there… and it’s a process to help the horse feel safe enough to invite their soul back into their body.) Of course, if we look closer, we will see the horse doesn’t really blink much. And there's small signs of tension in the horse’s face, but they’re for the most part very good about keeping it inside. They might also be persistently spooky, and just seem unsettled in their own bodies. They might also be “dull” and it seems large amounts of pressure need to be used to motivate them.

These Group 2 horses are interesting. Because, they might appear to be accepting of touch and humans. But, the relationship doesn’t survive transparency. It doesn’t survive the transparency of this test I’ve outlined here.

I’ve started to implement this question in my own life when I come across something that doesn’t quite sit right to me– “Would this survive transparency?”

Sticking with the horse world for a moment, if I come across a training method that doesn’t sit right, I can simply ask, would this technique survive transparency? If I ask “why,” does the claim start to get shaky and fall apart? Do I get the answer “That’s just the way it’s always been done” or deflection via a response like “Ma'am, I’m the expert, I’ve trained hundreds of horses, let me do my job.” Do I get a response that offers an explanation for the why, but I do some research and find it to be false, or find other ways of achieving the same thing without compromising my values? Do I get a response that is emotional with fluffy language but no actual substance?

Now widening our lens, going beyond the horse world and into wider webs of relation… I have a teacher, Leah Manaema Avene, who often says, “Colonialism can’t survive transparency.”

There are so many common narratives, narratives we take for granted, always having taken them for being true since we have been told them since the time we could talk, that cannot actually survive transparency– such as, for example, when we hear history from the perspective of the “conquered” not the “conqueror” (I say this for lack of better words to get my point across, while acknowledging that there are people here among us who are certainly not “conquered” and stand firm in their resistance to this day) or when we hear history from the lens of the global majority.

I thought about that a lot the other day because I came across a video online that spoke about how folks like myself, who are advocating for a Free Palestine and demanding an end to the genocide, are “dangerous terrorists.” Folks in the comments were even advocating for their “deportation.”

Does this claim - albeit emotionally stirring for sure, as it was meant to be - survive transparency? No. If you disagree, are you willing to put your beliefs to the test?

Personally, it feels important for me to put my beliefs to the test. Coming back to the horse world - If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be the horsewoman I am today. I probably would’ve gotten severely injured if not killed, or at least a part of me would’ve had to die - the part of me that longed for a deeper, authentic relationship with horses and the part of me that wanted to dedicate my life's work to helping horses who failed to "fit the program." With so many things I came across, something inside of me wasn’t content with the answers or status quo. I kept asking “why,” kept peeling back the layers, and sought deeper answers. I also needed to be able to articulate what I was doing, especially coming into this industry as a young woman. I couldn’t be standing on shaky ground, I had to be well informed and put my beliefs to the test before others did to question my credibility. Perhaps there’s a lot of different reasons I’ve developed this habit.

I think on some level we know when things won’t survive the test of transparency… but we might avoid putting them to the test because of the truth that would be, then, less able to hide. We would have to come eye to eye with it. We couldn’t keep brushing it under the rug. When we put it to the test, when it becomes glaringly obvious, we’d probably have to do something about it.

There have certainly been times in my life I kept avoiding the truth - which maybe was keeping me alive to an extent - until it wasn't. Until this denial was killing me. Until I was starving for truth.

I think back to a boyfriend I had once, who called me on the phone and said he was at home, when I could clearly hear things on the phone that told me he was in the car. But he told me he was at home, repeatedly. And because I didn’t want to face the fallout, have to come to terms with the pain of the truth right in front of me, I chose to believe him, albeit maybe not consciously. Luckily I eventually did leave that relationship, when the truth became too glaringly obvious, and a friend wouldn’t let me look away any longer. And then I plunged into a long darkness and faced fears I’d been avoiding around being unlovable, the pain of self-abandoning, etc. But ultimately it freed me to find more authentic relationships, relationships where I was treated with respect. I know other women who haven’t been so lucky. I think of a woman I know who endured years of abuse from her husband and kept the letters of him promising he’d change in a box for 30 years. She is still alive, but there is barely a trace of her left.

I think back to horses and how many of us don’t want transparency, oftentimes for good reason… What would confronting the truth mean? What would it ask of us? It might mean we can’t keep riding our horse who isn’t okay with touch, and maybe our livelihood depends on riding this horse, or maybe it's the one thing that keeps us sane in this world.

It would mean we would have to face the parts of ourselves feeling guilt and shame over riding a horse that was saying no (which, Holly Truhlar, Desiree Adaway, & Rachael Rice have started recognizing as “the sixth gate of grief: the harms we’ve done. The ache of the impacts we’ve had—knowingly or unknowingly—through silence, fragility, overwhelm, supremacy, entitlement, complicity, urgency, and simply being human in times of late capitalism. This grief is sacred,” Holly shares in her recent Substack, Rituals of Repair.)

It would mean, in some cases, our whole world view becomes cracked. And this can be absolutely terrifying, when the foundation we’ve thought was sturdy underneath our feet begins to crack. What ground would we have left to stand on? Sometimes it feels like we will just be swallowed up in an abyss of pain. Sometimes that is what happens. And not all of us can afford to be swallowed up, especially in this culture, without the proper support systems in place, when others’ livelihoods as well as our own depend on us showing up each day no matter what.

So I’m not telling others what to do. It’s not always so simple. Not everyone has the luxury of falling apart like I did. This is just my story, and I realize it is not, nor should be, everyone’s story necessarily.

But if I’m telling my story, here’s what I’ll leave you with. I remember when I woke up to reclaim my own life, when I finally saw with transparency. I wrote:

“what you thought was safe was traumatizing
what you thought was love was control
what you thought was weak was strong
what you thought was free was caged
what you thought was you was him

and in that moment, she began walking her path to freedom.”

I'm still walking. But I've gotten past the fence, at least. And on the other side of the pain, I found truth dripping down my chin. Authentic and fulfilling relationships. Unbridled joy. I’m not saying it’s easy. It’s actually, really really f*king hard. There were times I didn’t think I’d make it out alive – I wasn’t sure if it would kill me. But I knew staying in the same place I was most certainly would.

*
*
*

PC

10/04/2025

05/04/2025

04/04/2025

You can have all the facilities in the world, but if your horses can’t go out for 6 months of the year… what’s the point?

I came across a post this morning advertising a high-end yard:

• Olympic-sized outdoor arena
• Huge indoor arena
• Roofed horse walker
• Weekly clinics and shows
• On-site vets
• Even a café

And yet no winter turnout Oct to “Dry Spring” meaning April Time, that’s 6 months of no turnout just ridden and walker.
Because the fields are “clay.”

Look, I get that clay is difficult. But if you can invest six figures in show-standard arenas, you can invest in all-weather turnout or sacrifice paddocks. It’s not about money. It’s about priorities.

Turnout isn’t a seasonal perk. It’s not optional. It’s a basic need, for movement, for mental health, for socialisation. Horses aren’t machines you keep in a stable and bring out for work. They’re living beings who need space and freedom. A walker and a schooling session don’t replace that.

What really got me? The owner proudly says they sleep with their window open so they can hear if horses are door-kicking at night. That’s not charming, that’s heartbreaking. Horses shouldn’t be so stressed or frustrated that they’re banging doors all night long.

If we really care about horses, then we need to put their welfare before the wow-factor. The priority should never be human comfort or prestige over what the horse actually needs.

Stop building palaces for people and start building environments that let horses be horses.

FYI do you know what’s a starting to be a big selling point for stable yards now, turnout, invest and use it your advantage.

03/04/2025

The Number ONE Training Problem I See.
HORSES WHO GAVE UP TRYING.

And I think the solution is about being focused on solutions, not problems.

This super crunchy photo is far, far, far from perfect. I am aware. There is so much to improve, so much to work on. I also have grace for where my horse was at when this photo was taken. The reasons he is where he is, are very good reasons.

We do not help the horse by focusing on their problems.
We help the horse by focusing on the solutions.

You can only be focused on solutions, if you were already aware of the problems. Solution oriented work means that you have built in an understanding of the issues.

In a lesson this week, I worked with someone who had a specific goal in mind with their horse. They had a good rapport, good relationship with the horse. They could communicate with the horse. The horse liked them, and understood them.

They presented the idea to the horse.
The horse began an attempt.

As the horse began their attempt, the horses behaviour went slightly off-kilter to what the human expected. Because they had not yet fully disconnected the difference between goals and expectations. We can have goals without expectations.

As the horse went off-kilter a little bit, their handler became totally focused on the problem. The original goal... out the window. Now they and their horse, had no idea what they were doing in the first place.

Not knowing if their human was coming or going, the horse now put forth focus where their human put focus. Now the little off-kilter moment, became the WHOLE moment. And now the original goal was totally gone.

All of this took about 3 seconds.

3 seconds to get off track and the training goes sideways.

Some of us love our horses so much, and want the training to go well so much, that we over-fixate on any little issue that goes sideways, and end up feeding a training pattern in which the horses problems sit centre stage, and solutions feel far away. The result will be stuckness, and a lack of progression.

When my horse is off-kilter (like in the above photo), I notice it. But stay focused on our mutual goal that put us there in the first place.

Case study.

In this photo I was asking Sani to try a canter departure from a walk. Just the transition, I was not hoping for sustained canter. My aids to him were soft enough to suggest an idea of canter, without the idea of following all the way through to sustained canter.

This is because he was very out of shape. He was out of shape because I had just returned from a 7 week clinic tour where he did nothing but eat. He was out of shape because any spare time I had I chose to spend on improving the facilities he lived in. That is my priority. He is out of shape because during our first winter at home, we lost access to solid footing for training, and he dealt with a cancer diagnosis that involved two surgeries. Pretty good reasons to be out of shape. Despite the obstacles in our path, I am determined to crawl the training forwards, even if we cannot fly like we used to right now.

So Sani picked up on my idea. And he gave a canter departure that was light from the carpels, down. Not a small feat for a brick-sh*thouse of a horse. But from the elbows up, he inverted his posture in a manner I probably do not want to see be present long term.

Using his short neck and long skull, he "hammer-headed" the transition. A valiant show of effort. A horse who tried stretching himself perhaps before his body was truly ready. If you were to start "hen-pecking" him with Correctness driven aids that told him that transition was incorrect mechanically, you may stop the inversion, or create a brace between what his body can do now, and what you think he should do with his body. But mostly, if you Hen-Pecked him right then and there into correct posture, you would also break his try.

The fact is, he tried his heart out. And that is the most I can ask. The mechanics are details that will fall into place later. So I took note of the inversion, and allowed it.

My energy (Emotional expression) in the transition said: "Great try buddy. Well done."
My energy (Emotional expression) to him also said: "Not too much of that effort mate, you'll make your neck sore. But what a good effort!"

I go out in the world and the NUMBER ONE problem I see, is horses who have GIVEN UP TRYING.

That is honestly the biggest problem I see.

I come home and I have horses who try so hard I have to temper and "control" the amount of try that they have in almost all instances. But not 100% of case. But it is usually normal for me to be asking for a little less from my horses.

My long term clients are now facing similar issues with try- horses that try so hard for them that they now have a responsibility to temper it.

So as Sani tried this transition, he was computing multiple things. We had not done canter transitions in the BBP for maybe 4 years. So he was feeling into my seat (so was I) both of us wanting to make sure that we were balanced.

He also had zero help from the halter or the reins. The reins were just sitting softly "On" but the reins were not asking for flexion, or attempting to circumvent the inversion etc.

What I loved most about this transition was how the inside hip dropped at the pelvis but lifted at the stifle. This is a little groundwork detail I had been working on over winter, teaching a hip drop.

The front end issues, I circle back to groundwork details. Two weeks ago, I posted a tutorial to my Video Library with a Follow Along Flow that addressed this front end inversion tendency.

So, I guess what I am saying is, our human mind tends to get obsessed with the problem that we forget to be solution oriented always.

We abandon goals when we abandon expectations and it creates directionless training that doesn't go anywhere.

We squash our horses try by correcting them too much too soon, or too heavy in the moment.

Shame and embarrassment doesn't train horses well.

Humility and humour does.

13/11/2024

Warwick Schiller made his name as an expert trainer. An enigmatic little horse completely changed his outlook.

22/06/2024

Herdbound horses -

Herdbound horses are a common complaint- all over the country, horses are attached to a buddy or buddies, often to a level that can make them dangerous to take out alone, or sometimes even five feet away.
There are many opinions on different “fixes,” everything from running them ragged near their friend in frantic circles and resting them away from their friend, to a carrot on a stick or Hansel and Greek trail of treats on the path away from the friend. But the reality is, a herd structure is central to a horses survival, and companionship of other horses is part of their feeling of safety- no training can override the horses desire to be a horse witbout shutting them down

AND

The Herdbound horse is one who is not doing well!

In almost every clinic I’ve taught, the most Herdbound horse in the group is the one in roughest shape- tight back, sucked up flank, pain face, tight groin - the works. Horses that are in physical crisis are much more likely to feel vulnerable, stressed, and feel a strong pull toward comfort- which is another horse.

A horse who is not feeling well in their body, who is not feeling confident in their handler who is fighting against their body (it’s a hard truth because that usually isn’t the desire of the handler, but that is what’s happening), who is in a new and unsafe environment is going to seek out safety, and that pull is as strong as the tide.

What’s the fix for Herdbound issues?
Lifestyle fixes
Horses need a herd, they can’t live happily alone, I don’t care who has a horse that tolerates it, solitary confinement is not a way of life for a horse. They need a group, or at least one other friend at the bare minimum. But they are likely to be less secure with just one friend, and far more worried about leaving

Body fixes
Don’t just write off their body because you get routine Bodywork. Get their back moving, help their groin function without being spastic, create a functional body with a moving back and healthy gut so they can think and not be stuck in survival mode

Rider fixes
Make it so whenever you’re around, they feel safe and they feel secure. That means calm your own energy, learn how to guide, be aware of your environment, don’t nitpick, and make your body make their body feel stable and wonderful. Good riding is moving Bodywork- make it so when you sit on their back they are in better shape than out in the pasture - that is a tall order but I believe it’s entirely possible, and I see it happen all the time.

A Herdbound horse is a stressed out horse - the fix is in your hands entirely.

18/06/2024

Dr. David Ramey is a 1983 graduate of the Colorado State University School of Veterinary Medicine.

29/03/2024

What is the hyoid apparatus and, how can something in the mouth affect hind limb engagement?

For those who missed our webinar last night, or those who would like to know more about bridle and bit fitting, here is an excerpt from a piece Sue Stanbridge wrote for The Horse Hub.

THE HYOID APPARATUS
The tongue is attached to a little group of bones at the back of the skull called the hyoid bones. These are an incredibly important and unique group of bones. Firstly, they are not attached to any other bones using joints. They are attached with ligaments.

The front bone embeds into the tongue, with ligaments it then attaches to two long thin bones, which are situated inside the jaw that attach to the TMJ. Behind these are two small bones, which attach to muscles that run down the lower neck, into the scapula, along the abdominal wall and into the pelvis.

Problems with bridle fitting here, which restrict the ability of the tongue and lower jaw to move, will actually shut down the ability of the horse to recruit the lower ventral chain of muscles. If he cannot mobilise his jaw and tongue, he will send tension through the hyoid bones, up into the TMJ, down the muscles of the neck, through the thoracic sling and along the abdominal wall.

This impacts his ability to lift his back and engage his hindquarters. The horse is then put in a U shape; putting pressure along the dorsal spinal processes, disconnecting his shoulder sling and raising his head by recruiting the muscles underneath.

This is when we as riders, get locked into a spiral of asking our horses to lengthen their frame, drop their head, lift their back and engage their hindquarters but not allowing them to naturally use themselves biomechanically correctly.

With thanks to Vicki Wise for the use of her brilliant diagram.

Read the full feature here
https://www.thehorsehub.co.uk/how-to-fit-a-bridle

And for more information on the webinar or to watch the recording follow the link
https://www.thehorsehub.co.uk/product/biomechanics-of-bridle-and-bit-fit

11/01/2024

The answer: Boiled frogs. Our horses are extremely sensitive animals. They can also be very trainable, that’s what makes them such good partners. They can learn to be very tolerant, even to pain and discomfort. At one point a horse can be afraid and fighting for their life and we may not even have...